


Tumblr Prompts and Meta

by fuzzballsheltiepants



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Accidental Outing, Angst, Baseball, Fluff, M/M, Meta
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2019-09-12 22:19:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16880292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzballsheltiepants/pseuds/fuzzballsheltiepants
Summary: I'm going to be putting whatever prompts never made it onto AO3 here.  These are generally unedited which is not the way I usually work lol, but in case Tumblr implodes here they are





	1. Eighth Wonder

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1: Jeremy deals with missing Jean, and the aftermath of losing his temper at a reporter. This one is for Nikotheamazingspoonklepto: Hey! Combine 46: “ Can I kiss you right now? ”57: “ Is that my shirt? ”59: “ You own my heart. ” with your choice of jerejean or jeaneil ♡♡♡♡♡

Jeremy slammed his laptop shut and glared at the lid with its stupid smug rainbow Trojan decal.  He was halfway tempted to test its aerodynamics out his upstairs window, but he didn’t want the hassle of buying a new one.  And it wasn’t precisely the computer’s fault that that ridiculous reporter hadn’t been able to keep her mouth shut. Or that he had watched the interview on repeat half a dozen times, and it didn’t get better with familiarity.

He pulled out his phone and started to tap out a text, but it was coming out all wrong and he slammed the little backspace button aggressively.  Screw this. He’d go take a shower, blast his music as loud as he wanted, and when he finished all of this bullshit would be behind him and he could make dinner in peace.

It sorta/kinda worked, at least until he came back downstairs in his favorite oversized shirt and threadbare sweatpants, hair still wet, humming  _ Wait For It _ under his breath.  His phone binged at him; he checked it reflexively and saw a text from Kevin Day of all people.  He didn’t even read the damn thing, just let the phone fall; it bounced off the edge of the table, hit the chair on the way down, and landed, face down, on the tile floor.  

Figured.  

He had planned on some broiled fish and veggies with that passably-edible whole grain couscous his nutritionist had hooked him up with, but there was no way in hell he was eating that now.  Luckily there were some onions, a habanero, and a packet of ground beef in the fridge, and his mother had sent him her home-canned tomatoes a few weeks ago. 

If ever he needed to make chili, today was that day.  It didn’t take long before the familiar aroma of sauteing onions was wafting through the whole first floor.  There was something so comforting about the routine of chopping and frying, the scents and the sounds. After a few minutes, his heart rate had slowed enough that he went and snagged his phone off the floor.  By some miracle, the screen hadn’t cracked. Okay. One good thing today.

Cranking  _ Hamilton _ back up, by the time he was stirring in the tomatoes he was bopping along with the music.  He had gotten into it with one of the defensemen on his team over  _ Hamilton _ , but he defied anyone to really listen to it and not get completely entranced.  Jeremy lacked the willpower not to sing along; as terrible as he was at rapping, he knew this entire thing by heart and besides, who gave a shit if he sucked?  “I am not throwing away My. Shot. I am not throwing away. My. Shot.” He spun around in the kitchen, holding his wooden spoon like a microphone—only to discover Jean standing, bemused or amused, in the doorway. 

Jeremy immediately hid the spoon behind his back, and Jean’s beautiful mouth twitched up.  “Is that my shirt?” Jean asked, surveying Jeremy.

“No,” Jeremy said.  Jean raised one eyebrow.  “It  _ was _ your shirt, but I have claimed it in the name of missing you.”

Jean laughed and dropped his suitcase to come into the kitchen.  Jeremy tossed the spoon onto the counter and let Jean pull him into his arms.  “I missed you,” Jean murmured into his ear. 

Jeremy hummed.  “I thought you didn’t land until later.”

“I caught an earlier flight.”

Jeremy wasn’t precisely short, but Jean could still rest his cheek on the top of his head and standing like that was Jeremy’s favorite thing in the world.  He wanted to stay there for the rest of time, or at least until bedtime, but after a not-long-enough moment Jean released him.

“It’s a chili night?”

“Yeah,” Jeremy said, looking over his shoulder at the pot just beginning to bubble.

“What happened?”

Ugh, Jean knew him too well.  Jeremy went over to stir the chili and turn the heat down on the stove; he felt like he was being eaten alive from the inside out, all interest in food devoured by the parasite of anxiety.  “You saw the interview?” It was almost impossible to meet Jean’s eyes; it would have been unforgivable not to.

“I did,  _ mon cher _ .  You did brilliantly.”  There was no lie in his beautiful gray eyes, but Jeremy literally did not know how he could say such a thing.  He almost wondered if Jean had missed the all-important last two minutes.

“I outed us.”

Jean nodded.  “Yes, I noticed.”  There was no humor in his voice, no dismissal, no censure.  “But given the disgusting things they were asking about Laila and Sara, I don’t blame you.  I probably would have been far less...diplomatic.”

The gnawing creature in Jeremy’s gut quieted.  It had been appalling, the way the woman had tried to goad him into trashing his former teammates.  And her jaw-dropped shock had been rather amusing when, instead, he had calmly informed her that no, he did not believe that they were setting a poor example for young girls, and that if they were then so were he and Jean, and honestly half of professional exy. 

“Can I kiss you right now?” he blurted out.

Now Jean did laugh.  “I didn’t think you needed to ask.”  He closed the gap between them. 

He would never get tired of this feeling.  It had been years since Jean had showed up in California, a battered shell of a person, his soul retreated into the deepest crevices in an attempt to survive.  Every moment since then had been a small miracle, but kissing Jean—the fact that somehow he had managed to earn Jean’s trust and love—well, that was the eighth wonder of the world.    

Somehow he managed not to burn the chili, and they spent the rest of the night talking.  About Jean’s trip to New York; about the movie they had been wanting to see; about the end of the season and their plans for the few weeks before their national teams called them up.  Jeremy still couldn’t believe that if all went well they’d be playing against each other in the Exy World Cup tournament, but so it was. And then they spent time not talking much at all.

Later, so long past midnight Jeremy couldn’t even believe the clock, he lay curled onto Jean’s chest, listening to the slow thud of his heart and letting the tension of the past twenty four hours dissipate into nothingness.  None of that bullshit mattered anyway, not when he had this.

Just before he fell asleep, Jean murmured something in sleepy French.  Jeremy wasn’t so good at French, but he was able to piece this together, and tears started in his eyes.   _ You own my heart _ .  

Jeremy tucked himself in impossibly tighter to Jean’s side, thinking of the ring he had bought while Jean was in New York, that would be ready to be picked up tomorrow.  “You own my soul,” he whispered, then let himself drift into dreams.


	2. The Bag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For @howtotameyourillyrian: HC: Even after all things calm down, Neil still keeps an emergency bag in case shit hits the fan and he has to drop from sight. Only now his bag also contains a t-shirt used by Andrew, that Neil steals out of Andrew's hamper and changes out daily, because it smells of his two go-to comfort smells: cigarettes and Andrew.

At first, Andrew views the everpresent duffel bag stuffed under the bunk beds with exasperated distaste.  After all, didn’t the junkie promise he would stay?  Though Andrew knows too well the unwanted pull of addiction, and Neil was addicted to running.  So he decided to wait, to be an unmovable force for Neil to cling to if he wanted to keep his head above the water.

He ignored the bag that sat there, mocking him, for weeks.  But he couldn’t help but notice that it moved a little bit every day.  Just the slightest shift; rolled one day with the zipper more towards the room, the next one of the straps dangling carelessly, almost within reach.  

It would be easy, now that they live together, to open it and just see what kept Neil going back to it, day after day.  But he wouldn’t betray Neil’s trust again, no matter how loudly the voice in his mind whispered that Neil was going to run again, run from him.  More than once Bee had used that stupid-ass adage that trust is a two-way street, and he knew that if he wanted their _nothing_ to work, he had to keep in his lane and perhaps a miracle would happen and Neil would keep to his.

The miracle happened like this:  Andrew’s first class one Tuesday had a test that he finished early, and he had a gap before his second.  When he arrived back in the dorm, Neil wasn’t in the living area, but his book bag was still slouched next to the door.  Andrew went down the tiny hall to where he could hear a faint rustling of cloth coming through the open door to the bedroom.  

Neil was in there, digging in a hamper.  In Andrew’s hamper, to be precise.  He held a shirt Andrew had worn over the weekend in one hand, and the long sleeved t-shirt from the day before in the other.  The duffel lay, yawning open, half out from under the bed.  Andrew leaned against the door jamb and watched for the two seconds it took for Neil to notice his presence and start guiltily.

“You said I could borrow a shirt,” Neil said, turning a brilliant red from his neck to his ears.

That was true…four months ago.  “I imagined you’d borrow a clean one.”

“But that wouldn’t be the same.”

Andrew just raised an eyebrow at him and Neil slumped onto the lower bunk, defeated.  “You know I keep this packed with everything but the binder, just in case,” Neil said, tugging the duffel the rest of the way out from under the bed and staring at his hands, twisting their way through the handles.  “I still can’t really concentrate sometimes, unless I know it’s here, and ready.  But I always have one of your shirts on top.”

“Why?”

Neil looked up then, and there was something shining in his eyes that made Andrew’s breath catch.  “Because it’s a reminder of everything I’d be throwing away if I was stupid enough to run again.  Sometimes, when I can’t stop…remembering…I pull it out and I open it, and this little piece of you is there.  And it just makes that itch stop.  I can smell you and the Marlboro Reds and I remember the feel of that key in my hand.  I can hear you telling me to stay.  And it makes all the rest of it go away.”

It took a moment for Andrew’s muscles to remember how to move, but then he was standing next to the bunk, looking down at Neil who was looking up at him with his soul in his face.  “Yes or no, junkie.”

“Yes,” Neil breathed.  “Always yes.”


	3. Wondering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meta about David Wymack wondering re: Kayleigh and Kevin. A response to Bloodydamnit's question: okay but real talk. how did wymack NOT KNOW HOMEBOY WAS HIS SON.

You know…what if Wymack did suspect?  What if he asked Kayleigh, and she lied, and he was so, so certain she was lying.  When he met baby Kevin he searched for some sign of himself in this tiny creature, but all he saw was Kayleigh.  Kayleigh’s eyes, Kayleigh’s fierce determination, the cut of her mouth that was too old for an infant.  And he waited, and waited, to see if any sign of him popped up.

From afar, he studied Kevin as he grew.  Sure, his skin was darker than Kayleigh’s, but that didn’t mean anything.  But still, all he could see was Her.  Her single-minded focus, her passion.  There was nothing of his own uncertainty, his own compassion for broken creatures.  

Then Kayleigh died, and some deep part of him hoped that maybe…maybe now, the truth would come out and Kevin would come home to him.  He spent the day torn between mourning a friend and lover he had cared for, and fighting down a small kernel of excitement that maybe he would have a legacy of hers to raise for his very own.

But Kevin went to Evermore, and Wymack’s heart broke, again.  It broke and it kept on breaking, and he realized how fervently he had wanted Kevin, and he cursed himself for not listening to Kayleigh.  She had told him, more than once.  And if he had just listened, that spark would have been snuffed out before it became an inferno, and he would not be suffering as he now was.

Then years pass, and he watches Kevin become cold in a way Kayleigh had never been.  He can see through that press-ready veneer and it makes him so nauseated he has to turn off the TV and grab the scotch every time there’s some interview with a fawning reporter.  He sees Kevin slipping, hanging on by the fraying threads of his exy racquet, and he has no right, no power to do anything about it.

Until one day, there is a knock on his door, and there is Kevin, bloodied and broken and not just physically.  And he thinks, maybe now, maybe at this low point Kevin will tell him the truth.  But there is no such truth to tell, he realizes; Wymack was Kayleigh’s friend, and a fellow coach, and a believer in lost causes, and it is for those things alone that Kevin sought him out.  Otherwise, why would he still keep it secret?  And so Wymack swallows the bile in his throat, and smothers that flame of hope at last, and welcomes Kevin into his room.


	4. Kevin Day after the Riko Roast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More meta about what Kevin may have gone through following Neil going after Riko at the banquet.

Look, I love the Riko Roast TM as much as the next person, but does anyone else ever wonder what Kevin went through listening to Neil go off?

I’m not talking about his terror re: retribution, though that’s important.  I’m talking about the first couple of sentences in the rant.  _ You know, I get it.  Being raised as a superstar must be really, really difficult for you.  Always a commodity, never a human being, not a single person in your family thinking you’re worth a damn off the court—yeah, sounds rough _ .  

Do you ever wonder if Kevin lay awake that night, replaying those sentences over and over again in his head?  And wondering if this is what Neil really thinks not just of Riko, but of him too? Neil, the scrappy kid who plays with the heart and passion that draws Kevin in like a magnet.  The kid whose crappy high school footage Kevin looked and said, “That one. That one will be Court.” Who Kevin is proud of, and so demands so damn much of every day—and gets it.

And maybe Kevin is lying there in the dark, drunk and scared, but also so, so hurt.  Because he doesn’t remember what it’s like to be a real person. Nathaniel/Neil may be ever-changing, a puppet, a ghost; but Kevin was not allowed to be human.  He had to be perfect, a robot, a machine whose only function or value was exy. 

He knew that he was beloved by strangers, and resented by those who actually knew him.  For years he had not cared. After all, he had been trained not to care; to feel at all was a weakness.  All of his fear, all of his pain, all of his insecurities had been buried down deep under blows from a cane and the numbing relief of alcohol.

Do you ever think that this was the true turning point for him?  He had escaped the Ravens and fled to his father and Andrew, and he had rebelled against the Raven’s cruelty by trying to push the Foxes into a good enough team to face them, but he had stopped there.  He had never been allowed to think for himself, to act for himself. And here was Neil, voicing the things he would never have dared think, and he couldn’t even tell what applied to Riko and what to himself.

And then the next day they talk, and Neil plants his feet and takes a stand.  He would rather die making a difference then run away. And this boy, who could be anything, who should have been Court, only wants to live all of his remaining moments to the fullest.  So Kevin agrees to help him do that, “Every night.”

Kevin watches as Neil slowly pulls everyone around them to him.  He watches him take Riko down on the court floor at the winter banquet, watches as he fights for Andrew.  For all of them, really. And a tiny part of him begins to wonder what might be possible if he did the same.

But it’s terrifying, and at first too overwhelming to seriously consider.  His mind plays out all the what-ifs. After all, Neil is a (barely) walking poster child for what can happen if one steps out of line when he returns from the Nest.  Yet every night, after he falls exhausted into his bed, it echoes in his head:  _ always a commodity, never a human being _ .  And he finds himself first resenting, then raging, at the peculiar twist of fate that had doomed him to the Ravens all those years ago.

The Foxes keep winning, pulled together by Neil’s strange charisma that Kevin doesn’t understand but is drawn to just the same.  Then Baltimore happens, and Kengo dies, and finally, finally Neil tells him to take a stand. And Neil is right, Kevin knows he’s right.  This middle ground won’t save him forever. And he sees Jean, he sees the destruction Riko has wrought, he sees what has happened to someone he wishes he had been able to protect, and the machine he was masquerading as just  _ cracks _ .

So Kevin finds his feet, finds his strength, finds his heart.  He finds Jean a new home; he starts to forge a relationship with the father he had neglected for his own career; and he finally learns what it’s like to play with the true, sheer unadulterated love of the game.

_ No longer a commodity _ .  Kevin allows himself to be human; and as such, he can truly allow himself to begin to heal.


	5. Don't Think

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meta about Andrew's life before and during the events of AFTG. Oblique references to child abuse and canon sexual assault (neither explicit)

Don’t think about 12 year old Andrew Doe, a victim of the foster system, one of the forgotten boys, learning that he has a twin brother, someone who looks just like him.  His excitement and joy that there is someone who shares his genes but not his torture, someone who might understand him just a little bit.  And a little bit of terror that maybe his brother wouldn’t love him back, would see him just like everyone else did, as a problem.  About that joy bubbling over just a little bit when he got the letter from Aaron, wanting to meet him.  How he studied his brother’s handwriting, how they make their ‘g’s and ‘s’s the same.  How he slept with the letter under his pillow for a few nights, reaching under to touch it, to prove it was real.

Don’t think about that happiness being twisted and corrupted by the horrors Drake whispered in his ear.  About Andrew, dry-eyed but with his chest caving in, writing a vicious letter telling his brother to fuck off.  About Drake continuing to push and cajole until Andrew sees no choice but to get himself arrested.  About him breaking and entering and being so destructive he gets sentenced to years in juvie, but at least he’s safe.  Aaron is safe from Drake, so it will all be okay, it doesn’t matter what happens to Andrew as long as Aaron is safe.

Don’t think about Luther coming to meet Andrew, then bringing Aaron along later, not heeding what Andrew had said, what secrets he had given up.  About Andrew sitting across from Aaron, studying the scattered bruises across his face fading yellow and green, and realizing that even if Aaron was safe from Drake it didn’t mean he was _safe_.  About him turning around and working hard in juvie, earning an early release once it’s clear he’ll be allowed to live with Aaron, allowed to protect him from everyone who would hurt him.  About him taking Aaron’s last name.  Aaron’s, not Tilda’s.  He is Aaron’s brother but he will never be Tilda’s son.

Don’t think about Andrew warning Tilda the first time she struck Aaron in his presence.  She wouldn’t dare hit Andrew, but she’s free with her fists with Aaron.  About Andrew realizing Aaron is addicted to Tilda’s drugs and she can’t be bothered to help him.  About Andrew realizing all the ways it was possible to be fucked up and fucked over, that he was not the only one who grew up tortured and neglected.  About Andrew thinking night after night of all the ways he had failed his brother, the mental lists he made, the retribution he planned.

Don’t think about Andrew convincing Aaron to switch with him that night, knowing that it was possible Aaron would never see either of them again.  About Andrew giving Tilda one last chance to stay her fists, and her unleashing them anyway.  About Andrew showing up at Luther’s and Maria’s door, beat all to hell, so they will know what destruction Tilda wrought.  About the cool deliberation with which Andrew forced the accident, the bruises the seatbelt caused across his chest and shoulder, the sound of breaking glass and crunching metal, the screaming and the blood and underneath it all the quiet satisfaction that Aaron will never be hurt again.

Don’t think about Aaron not understanding and Andrew not being able to explain.  About how hard words are at the best of time, easier to wield as weapons than as balm, and Andrew doesn’t get how Aaron doesn’t see it.  It’s so, so obvious to him, but his brother–his twin, the one person he thought would see him for who he was–just can’t understand.  Then Nicky comes and Andrew locks Aaron in the bathroom until the withdrawal is done and Aaron is so, so angry.  His fury is flames erupting over spilled gasoline, and Andrew is left watching as everything burns down and Nicky tries to put out the fire.

Don’t think about everybody in the world designating Andrew a monster, uncaring, unfeeling.  A creature to be feared but not respected and never, never understood.

Don’t think about a rabbit appearing suddenly in Andrew’s life, terrified of the world but not of him.  Who will call him out for not being medicated, who will get himself knocked out instead of spilling his secrets, who will find his own way home, refusing to capitulate but giving him the respect of part of his story nonetheless.  Who sees Andrew’s offer of protection for what it is and accepts it at face value.  Who is the first person to realize that Andrew was protecting Aaron, and to see why Aaron’s blindness was a knife in the ribs.  Who sees through the haze of drugs and rumors and reputation, and realizes that Andrew cares.  About how Andrew’s heart is so big it overwhelms him, and Neil is the only one who can see.

Don’t think about Neil being the first person to put himself in front of a monster coming for Andrew.  About how that is so impossible it seems like a hallucination, a side effect, a pipe dream.  About how Andrew sees the irony that the only person who sees the real him is not real himself, is just a ghost struggling to make himself solid.  And Andrew fights for Neil just as Neil fights for him, until together they are more real, more seen, more understood than they had ever been.

Don’t think about how Neil gave Andrew his brother back.  Aaron isn’t a deal anymore, isn’t just another person to employ Andrew as a bodyguard, but is his actual brother.  His family.  Finally Andrew taking Aaron’s last name isn’t a bitter joke, it’s truth.  Their relationship isn’t easy, it’s still biting words and sharp looks and suspicion, but slowly, inch by inch, they fight their way towards each other.

Don’t think about twins taking 20 years to find each other, through separation and violence and drugs and bottomless rage.  About how every day is a struggle, a battle, but they never give up on each other.  They come so close to letting go, to walking away, but they manage to find each other in the end.


	6. Caught in a Fairy Tale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meta drabble about Demiromantic!Andrew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by Ephemeralsky's lovely fic One Way or the Other (or maybe neither) about demisexual!Neil where demi!Andrew is hinted at

More and more I’m realizing that while Neil is demisexual, Andrew is almost certainly demiromantic.  

We know he feels physical attraction to other men; Roland, people in juvie (per Nora’s EC), etc.  But it’s always a transaction, it’s always about his rules and who is willing to follow.  Which makes sense, given his history, but I suspect until Neil he doesn’t even know what romantic attraction means.

It must sound like a fairy tale to him: a story they tell children, to make them feel like they are always missing out on a secret that everyone else knows, to make them feel compelled to partner up, to pretend they’re in on that secret too.  But Andrew, he’s smarter than that.  He’s seen family after family, the violence and dirty secrets, the monsters that hide in the shadows of each “perfect” little home with its picket fence and walk-in closets.  Romance and love, delusions fed to the populace like drugs in the water.

At first, acknowledging his attraction to Neil is easy.  He’s pretty, and smarter than he should be, sharp-tongued and clever.  Something pleasant to think about while getting himself off.  But piece by piece, Neil is putting together the puzzle that is Andrew, faster than Andrew can do the same for Neil.  Neil _sees_ him, in a way Andrew has never been seen.  It’s unsettling, and intriguing, and the fascination grows.

Then Drake happens, and Easthaven, and for the first time in years Andrew’s brain is not being yanked around by the wrong medication.  For that must have been it, right?  The drugs, messing with his senses, making him see… _something_ , something that wasn’t there, that couldn’t possibly exist.  A fairy tale.  A pipe dream.

He gets out, and Neil is beat to hell and auburn-haired and blue-eyed and tattooed, and he’s looking at Andrew like _that_.  Unafraid.  When Andrew asks why he went to Evermore, and it was for _him_ –some misguided attempt to save the unsavable–it is fury that dominates Andrew’s untampered emotions.  For how dare he?  How dare he be so real, so easily able to make Andrew feel?

“Do it.  I’ll take you with me.”  He does, too.  Andrew may have unwittingly pushed Neil into falling, but he was dragged after, every foundation of cynical reality he had built for himself crumbling.  He’s caught on the other side of the looking glass, in a world that looks like his own but distorted.  In a world where it was possible to feel _this_ for another person, to have that returned.  To put someone’s hand on his chest, and have it stay there–just there.  To dip his toes into the fathomless water that is trust, and not have them bitten off by the monsters that reside within.

Andrew had never believed in fairy tales.  Never, until he found himself in one.


	7. Take Me Out to the Ballgame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew drags Neil to a baseball game as punishment. Naturally, it does not go as expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> from an anonymous prompt on Tumblr, "Andreil at a baseball game". For once, total fluff just to prove it's possible for me.

“I’m being punished, aren’t I.”  

Neil’s arms were crossed and his eyes were narrowed, and Andrew struggled to keep his face straight.  “Yes.”

“Ugh.”  Neil cast another glare in the direction of the stadium rising up in front of them.  “I didn’t mean to do it. I can take her back, if you want. It was just...she was looking at me with those eyes, you know?”

Andrew did know; Neil was looking at him with those same piteous eyes, just as he had a week ago when he had brought home yet another hard-luck kitten.  This made four, with fifteen legs and seven eyes and three tails between them, and Andrew had warned him after the last one what would happen. Neil knew Andrew always kept his word.

Besides, it wasn’t like Neil would actually take the thing back.  When they had left the little tripod beast had been asleep in Andrew’s boot and Neil had gushed and taken seventeen photos with his goddamn phone before Andrew had shoved him out the door.

“You know the deal, junkie.  Add a cat, go to a baseball game.  Add two, and it’s season tickets.” It was the only recourse Andrew had at this point, short of homicide.

By some gift of a minor deity they made it into the stadium and to their seats without being recognized.  Once Neil was slumped in his seat like a sullen toddler, Andrew left in search of alcohol. At least this park had semi-decent beer; he ordered a comically overpriced ‘76 and a miniature plastic baseball cap heaped with moose-tracks ice cream and headed back towards his seat.

As he came down the steps he realized there was a strange hubbub down in their section.  A strange,  _ Neil-related _ hubbub.  Of fucking course.  A cluster of college-age kids were all gathered around a flustered Neil, waving programs in his face for him to sign.  

“But I don’t even play baseball,” he was protesting when Andrew made his way into their row.  He was fully prepared to dump his twelve dollar beer on someone’s head if necessary, but it turned out conspicuously stepping on people’s feet and pretending you didn’t notice was a highly effective method of getting them out of your way.  Who knew?

Neil blinked up at him sheepishly.  “They’re, uh, fans.”

Andrew gave him his best “No shit” look, and Neil grinned when one of the fans squealed as they recognized Andrew.  

“Oh my god.  Oh my god, you’re Andrew Minyard.  You’re like my brother’s favorite player!  He has a fathead of you up on his wall!”

Neil snorted; the girl continued to gush despite Andrew’s flattest stare until her friends tugged her away.  “Well, now you know why they made you pose for that,” Neil said with sweet venom. “It was all so one teenage boy could have a life-sized vinyl version of you forever on his bedroom wall.”

“Thanks.  That’s not fucking creepy or anything.” 

It was already the bottom of the first inning and Neil hadn’t so much as glanced in the direction of the field.  They were close enough to see the sweat on the batters’ faces as they headed for first base, not that Neil appreciated the good seats.  Andrew wondered if it still counted as punishment if Neil succeeded in getting through all nine innings without watching a pitch. Probably, judging by the restless jiggling of one long leg.  

Andrew finished his ice cream and sipped his beer, ignoring the twitching coming from the seat next to him.  Vendors wandered up and down the steps, and Neil bought himself a hot dog and onion rings, the latter of which Andrew mooched half of before he even noticed.  

By the top of the fourth, Neil had started to watch despite himself, the junkie.  At the bottom of the fifth, he leaned over. “Fastball.”

Andrew studied the way the pitcher was eyeing the catcher, the angle of his shoulder, the stance of his feet.  “Curve.”

“Five bucks?”

“You’re on.”

By the seventh inning stretch, Andrew was twenty dollars richer and celebrated by escaping the off-key singing that reverberated through the stadium to get another beer.  This time he returned to find his idiot arguing with a hard-core baseball fan from the row in front over whether replay was killing the sport. Neil had the glow in his eyes and flush across his cheeks that he got when he was fighting just for the sheer love of being difficult, and Andrew wanted to drag him out of there, if only to find a dark corner and kiss him senseless.  He wasn’t even paying attention to what Neil was saying, just the way he lit up and laughed at the response he got.

Play resumed, and this time it was Andrew having trouble concentrating on the game.  It was impossible.  _ Neil _ was impossible, with the sun highlighting the curve of his cheek, shooting gold through the flame of his hair.  He glanced at Andrew, the corner of his mouth quirking up and promising trouble later. With a herculean effort, Andrew dragged his eyes back to the field; if his thoughts were racing ahead to newfound plans for how they would spend the rest of their evening, nobody needed to know.

The game ended with a strikeout from the young relief pitcher.  The roar from the crowd had Neil joining in, swept away in the noise and almost palpable joy that rippled through the stadium.  Andrew remained in his seat as his junkie leaped to his feet, silently shaking his head at how spectacularly his plan had gone awry.  

“That wasn’t so bad,” Neil said once they were back in the merciful air conditioning of the Maserati.  

“I’ll have to think up a different deterrent.”

The smile Neil shot him with was painful in its beauty.  “You know Lady Whiskerton has a brother.”

“You are not naming it that.”

“Too late.”  Neil caught Andrew’s hand where it rested on the gear shift and brought his palm to his lips.  “You’re stuck with us.”

A thousand acid retorts marched through Andrew’s brain only to die on his tongue.  He had been trapped in flypaper before, knew the sticky helplessness of it. This was different; this was a plant turning to the sun.  It was warmth, and strength, and the slow sure deepening of roots through rocky soil. This was every dark corner and recess being illuminated, every demon exposed by the sanitizing light, and saying yes anyway.  It was the opposite of stuck.

“You’re an idiot,” he said, keeping his voice as flat as possible.  But Neil—damn him, Neil was fluent in Andrew as he was in everything else.  He heard the truth behind the words, and the look he turned on Andrew was preposterously beautiful.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re thinking at me too loudly.”

Neil laughed, bright and warm. Andrew could bask in the sound.  “You can hear what I’m thinking?”

Andrew could; after all, he was good at languages too.  And it was the same as the thought currently taking root in his own chest.  The words echoed through the car, unspoken but not unheard, as Andrew steered them towards home. 


	8. Neil Meta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just me musing on how much I love Neil

Does anyone else ever think about how much All for the Game is really about Neil Josten figuring out who he really is at his core?  As a child he couldn’t safely learn about himself, he was terrorized and beaten down, all he learned how to do was hide, to run.  Once he and Mary left, he was a chameleon; not just changing his hair and his eyes and his language, but his personality, to best blend in and go unnoticed.  He carefully crafted backstories, histories; fabricated a whole life, over and over.  The one constant was his love of exy, and I think that’s why he clung to it so hard.  

But though Neil loves running–it is safety, it is power, it is independence–he’s not a runner by nature.  Though Neil is an adept liar, so much so he has a hard time remembering the truth, he’s not a liar by nature.  And though Neil had been taught never to care about others, he loves people deeply.

The true Neil Josten is a fighter.  He’s a recognizer of truths who values honesty more than almost anything else.  His adaptive skill is impressive, but his greatest strength lies in taking a stand.  He doesn’t want to care about his friends, doesn’t even want to admit he has friends, but he bargains part of his own life for Kevin and Jean and spends months trying to improve the relationships between his teammates.  It’s a fascinating study of nature vs. nurture, and though he fears his nature–he is disgusted by the fact that he inherited his father’s temper, his father’s smile–we get to watch him figure out how to own those parts of himself, how to use them to his advantage, how to live and not just survive. 


	9. The Silences of Nicky Hemmick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My thoughts on Nicky's emotional state before the beginning of AFTG

Nicky was a connoisseur of silences. **  
**

His parents’ silence was crushing.  He held out against it as long as he could, swimming against the murky darkness, knowing somewhere up there was the sun, and air, and warmth.  But eventually he had to take a breath, and the briny cold rushed into his mouth and nose, the pressure in his lungs nearly at the bursting point when one of his flailing hands caught onto a lifeline.  He had been dragged onto the shore, and the sun was too bright, the sand hot enough to burn his skin, and the air slicing him as he breathed it in.  Eventually he had crawled away from the crashing waves; eventually he has found his feet, found solid ground, found the birds in the sky and the softness of grass and the sweet scent of flowers.  But always, always the tide called to him, asking, begging, demanding that he return home to its depths.

There was the silence to be found in the shelter of Erik’s arms, warm and bittersweet, coating his tongue like fine chocolate.  He savored it, sought it out, lived for those stolen moments.  When he returned to Columbia, he swore to himself that he would never forget, even though he knew he could never deserve such indulgence.

His cousins’ silence was hot and sharp, simmering with pain and rage.  It cut like one of Andrew’s knives.  That silence could not be countered with anger; that just fed the flames.  So he loved instead, loved blindly and fiercely and without regret.  Sweetness balancing spice.  Most of the time, he felt like he was being consumed by their fire, but sometimes it was as if he was pulled into the heart of it, protected by the leaping flames.

Then there was the silence of his own soul, yawning and empty, biting like a cold wind that made no sound.  That abyss had once been full, of light and faith and hope.  He didn’t know if he had walked away from God or if God had walked away from him.  All he knew was the painful words that echoed in the chasm. _Unworthy.  Undeserving.  Unclean._   

Erik had tried to fill that void; while they had lived together, Nicky thought he had. But the days and weeks and months apart had eroded away the shaky ground, and now that silence was sometimes all he heard.

He blocked it out as best he could, the tides and the void and the flames, with words and laughter and color.  He would use their weapons against them, pretend their fears were reality, wear the vicious rumors as armor.  If he was to be seen as promiscuous, as unclean, then he’d flirt with every man who caught his eye; if he was supposed to be ashamed, then he would flaunt his shamelessness.  If they demanded penance, he would laugh in defiance even as he wielded the whip himself.  

So he built a shield of rebellion, and hoped it would keep him alive.  


End file.
